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In some parts of America you may not feel like this is the case, but you're free to not have to be a Christian in America or an adherent of any religion. Please blog, write, tweet, post, and shout out about Religious Freedom Day, which (since 1992) is January 16 every year. Learn more about it from Frederick Clarkson and Elena Carlena. Of course, blog, write, tweet, post, vlog, shout out, and everything else on January 16 itself about religious freedom in the United States.

In the heat of our political moment, we sometimes don’t see how our future connects deeply to our past. But the Christian Right does — and they do not like what they see.

The Christian Right has made religious freedom the ideological phalanx of its current campaigns in the culture wars. Religious freedom is now invoked as a way of seeking to derail access to reproductive health services as well as equality for LGBTQ people, most prominently regarding marriage equality.

But history provides little comfort for the theocratic visions of the Christian Right. And that is where our story begins.

For all of the shouting about religious liberty — from the landmark Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case, to the passage of the anti-gay Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Mississippi, and more — there is barely any mention, let alone any observance, of the official national Religious Freedom Day, enacted by Congress in 1992 and recognized every January 16 by an annual presidential proclamation.

*This is to the point of several commentators. To quote Clarkson: "The Christian Right has made religious freedom the ideological phalanx of its current campaigns in the culture wars". So while it's true that the Christian Right doesn't want you to know about January 16, it might also be said that they don't want you to know about it unless they're the ones telling you about it.

Frederick Clarkson, senior fellow at Political Research Associates, examines a possible "ideological reorganization, or at least reconsideration, now taking place within the Christian Right" that calls for non-democratic means, possibly including martyrdom, to affect extremely conservative political change in the United States.

Clarkson begins with an essay by long-time Republican Party operative David Lane calling for religious war in the United States.

“If the American experiment with freedom is to end after 237 years,” wrote Republican campaign strategist David Lane in an essay published on a popular conservative website in 2013, “let each of us commit to brawl all the way to the end.”

Lane's essay, “Wage War to Restore a Christian Nation,” was published on World Net Daily (WND) and then removed from it. A month later, in July 2013, Lane

told conservative Iowa radio talk show host Steve Deace...that “car bombs in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Des Moines, Iowa” would be merciful punishment from God for legalized abortion and for “homosexuals praying at the Inauguration [of President Obama’s second term].”

Since those comments, Lane is a man on the move, not a piraha. As Clarkson explains, in October 2013, Lane told the Dallas Morning News about an event of the Iowa Renewal Project,

one of several state-level units of the American Renewal Project—which is, in turn, a political development and mobilization project of the Mississippi-based American Family Association. Its most prominent figures are founder Don Wildmon and the abrasive radio host Bryan Fischer. Lane [said] that the goal of the event, which featured Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and U.S. Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), was the same as the others: “the mobilization of pastors and pews to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage and re-establish a Christian culture.” Lane said: “We’ve been in 15 states now, largely under the radar, and we’ve had 10,000 pastors plus spouses that we’ve put up overnight and fed three meals. The purpose is to get the pastors—the shepherds in America—to engage the culture through better registration and get out the vote.”

Father C. John McCloskey, who believes that regional American strongholds of conservative Christianity may be necessary in light of the culture of religious pluralism and the constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state,

and Pastor David Whitney, 56, who leads the small Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Pasadena, MD (near Washington, D.C.).

Clarkson notes:

Taken singly, the views of [these] Christian Right leaders...would not necessarily signal a trend. But taken together, the commonalities of their views take the edge off of their many differences and reveal distinct, overlapping factions of a dynamic movement towards the ideas of nullification and secession—and the possibility of violence and revolution.

These leaders are not without influence, they are not without connections within the Republican Party, and, as Clarkson shows, they are deadly serious.

The rumblings may be faint, seemingly distant, but they absolutely must not be ignored.

Articles on Clarkson's essay have on Salon.com (article by Paul Rosenberg) and Buzzflash (an article by Bill Berkowitz).

The documentary shows how not only prominent American conservative evangelicals like Scott Lively and Lou Engle but many missionaries and organizations like the Kansas City-based International House of Prayer

have done a great job convincing Ugandan parents that homosexuals are out to get their children. This “recruiting” notion is as old as time and should have been discredited by now, but it seems to work particularly well in a culture that has not had much experience with sexual minorities. Of course, the irony is that it’s the radical evangelicals who are doing the recruiting here, literally whispering their lifestyle into the ears of kids—as a poignant scene at the funeral of slain activist David Kato shows, actual LGBTQ people are struggling just to stay alive.

Truth Wins Out announced today the launch of its new Center Against Religious Extremism (TWOCARE.org), which aims to hold America’s Religious Right accountable for promoting theocracy at home and shipping its dangerous brand of hate abroad. TWOCARE commenced today with a $100,000 matching grant from philanthropist Henry van Ameringen.

“If you’re like me, you are tired of American extremists literally getting away with murder from Uganda to Russia,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The Center Against Religious Extremism is designed to monitor, counter, and ultimately serve as a bulwark against an ignoble enterprise designed to drag the world back into the Dark Ages.”

PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE ANNOUNCEMENT AND MAKE A CONTRIBUTION AT: www.twocare.org

[Anglican clergyman Christopher] Senyonjo's opposition to discrimination against gays has earned him the status of "an elder" in the eyes of the country's beleaguered gay community, said Pepe Julian Onziema, a prominent gay leader in Uganda who has known Senyonjo for many years. "Our relationship is one of giving support to each other. The backlash that we receive is equally the same," said Onziema, who added that Senyonjo has taken "a very courageous and brave stand."

Senyonjo said he lives off "gifts" from his children and friends after his pension was severed as "a kind of punishment" over his pro-gay activities.

"They (church leaders) cut off my pension," he said. "It is very difficult even for my family. But I know the truth and it has made me free."

Also, for more information see the documentary being released on DVD in May 2014, God Loves Uganda, an examination on the role of American evangelicals in fostering anti-gay hatemongering in Uganda. View the trailer here.

Author, blogger, and civil rights and anti-war activist David Mixner offers a personal reflection on faith and the fight for social justice. Here's an excerpt:

I have to continue with the battle until I can't lift my head any longer. Not because I am special or indispensable but because I am one of you and each and everyone one of us is needed. By continuing to embrace life, I am one more voice that refuses to be silenced until our children can live in total freedom.

After all Archbishop Romero believed that sin was simply to do nothing in the face injustice, war and poverty. My 'fellow travelers' in life always have been those who believe the Archbishop's words:

Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.

Thousands of schools in states across the country can use taxpayer money to cast doubt on basic science.

A large, publicly funded charter school system in Texas is teaching creationism to its students, Zack Kopplin recently reported in Slate. Creationist teachers don’t even need to be sneaky about it—the Texas state science education standards, as well as recent laws in Louisiana and Tennessee, permit public school teachers to teach “alternatives” to evolution. Meanwhile, in Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, taxpayer money is funding creationist private schools through state tuition voucher or scholarship programs.

The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter whether or not you think homosexuality is a sin. Let me say that again. It does not matter if you think homosexuality is a sin, or if you think it is simply another expression of human love. It doesn’t matter. Why doesn’t it matter? Because people are dying. Kids are literally killing themselves because they are so tired of being rejected and dehumanized that they feel their only option left is to end their life. As a Youth Pastor, this makes me physically ill. And as a human, it should make you feel the same way. So, I’m through with the debate.

Creationists advising the Texas Education Agency, the state’s board of education, are no longer even trying to hide the fact that they want to insert pseudo-scientific material grounded in religious beliefs into public school science textbooks. Terrence Stutz of the Dallas Morning News reports that evolution detractors appointed to the review boards are urging the textbook publishers to ignore the Supreme Court (along with science) and push Creationism, or be rejected.

A response to this religious-right ploy comes from the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) and its Stand Up for Science Education campaign (the hashtag is #standup4science). TFN explains:

Stand Up for Science is an ongoing TFN campaign uniting parents, educators, scientists and businesspeople in support of sound science education and responsible medical research in Texas. This multi-issue campaign focuses primarily on the issue of teaching evolution and climate change in public school science classes and defending stem cell research in Texas.

It's baffling and regretful that the recent attention online about the Religious Left has insufficiently mentioned the prescient Dispatches from the Religious Left written four years ago and now more relevant than any time since its publication.

There is currently a lot of noise in the media about how a Religious Left is rising. But there is also little evidence that such a movement is being organized. A few years ago, a faux Religious Left was manufactured Inside the Beltway. The product didn't sell well, and here we are. But some people who thought that an authentic Religious Left might be a good idea got together and published a book of essays about what it might be like and how to get there.